


pulses.

by deepscholar



Category: Re-Animator (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Corpse Desecration, First Kiss, I Don't Even Know, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Making Out, Medical Experimentation, Stream of Consciousness, Weirdness, dan being a little bitch, herbert being a little bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-04-01 03:44:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13989774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepscholar/pseuds/deepscholar
Summary: perhaps it'd be better if herbert west kept his feelings muted after all.[takes place uhhhhh sssometime...........? im sorry ok i just bolted this down on impulse]





	pulses.

An awful rupture of self and sense. Yes, that was it. That was what had affected Herbert West that night, what had made him act in such a manner. The reagent, it was running thin in his veins. His nerves were all wrong, his mind all a-flicker. Thus, it could not have been by will of his own that he, seizing him by the collar, pressed his own mouth onto Daniel Cain's with such aggression and yet such _passion_ that his poor lab assistant had found himself quite suddenly immobilised by shock. The hands that caressed Dan's back were hands wracked with nervousness, and that is why they moved so, why the fingers curled and grasped at the fabric of the shirt, slipped along the length of the spine, twinged in the juts of the shoulder blades. There was no reason other than pure animal fear to be given as explanation for the desperate _pressing_ of Herbert's body to Dan's own, a meeting of warm chests, stomachs, groins. Lips drew away, feverish gasps shallow and hot, and Herbert seemed to panic and so kissed him again, seeking refuge. The arms which had caressed now flung themselves, clutching, around the taller man, pulled him in and close by the small of his back. Dan's body, limp, swayed slightly, and he made himself keep his hands still.  
They were locked that way. Two reptiles in a dark room.

\---

"I don't have time for this, Dan."  
Herbert drew closer to the gurney, head down-turned. Dan was sulking, distant. His eyes were dark like a creature's, and he hardly spoke, and yet seemed all too full of words. Herbert put the syringe down, and now, pretending to focus, he placed two white fingers on the darkly discoloured wrist of the corpse, a John Doe of decidedly hideous features.  
"We will talk about it," said Dan, dangerously quiet. If he'd been more concerned at the moment, Herbert would certainly have glared at him for his general absence. He had not been making himself very useful.  
A pause, precise. "About what?"

Further hush.

Dan's voice was a husk of itself, a whisper hollowed of feeling by the coming break in his voice. "You know."  
The basement filled with the glass oxygen which surrounds those who hold their breaths. Dan let go first.  
"What the fuck was-"  
"Shut up."  
Spoken between gritted teeth, animal. Herbert didn't look up or turn around, he just stared at the corpse with his head hung like a scolded child.  
"Just. Shut. Up."  
Time had been shot dead, and everything was frozen and burning.  
Dan stormed up the stairs, and Herbert drew a shaky breath. He uncoiled his hand from the corpse's wrist, where it had squeezed and left no colour. Water beaded on his cheek, and he slapped himself across the face.

\---

That he'd kissed him was now the most hellish thing in Herbert's world. The memory, even, was blurry. His system had pulsed furiously, dying hares thumping out their final warnings. Indeed, the reagent had been running too low, and the panic was a bird with claws sudden and seizing, talons at his throat. And the syringe had been there, neon green rippling in waves over his vision at the administration, forceful. A strong fist on his wrist. They'd been so close, and Dan's mouth had been open and there had been groans with his breathing. And Herbert had clutched to him, clutched like in that rushing of feeling and internal implosion this was the only safety he could hope for. And Herbert had kissed Dan, and kept there as the eruption lurched down through his rib cage.

The scalpel went slow. Slow, empty in its gliding motion, so that the eventual dip down into skin was like heaven, like an angel swooping gently into clouds. It was swift then, and lovely. Along the sternum, slipping down quite to bone. The wet of blood was hardly evident, the body like a doll sucked of all fluid and fat, and it was just sponge now, and damp, ashen dermis like the wan pastry on a raspberry pie. A brushing of phalanges, flat, on the stomach by the greyed navel, and the scalpel continued in its drifting line. Something within Herbert _twitched_ and the blade ripped up, diagonal, tearing the skin along the abdomen in a shivery line, deep. Now blood _did_ come, feeble, lacing the line like ants. He hated it now, hated that corpse with its peaceful features. The scalpel was yanked free and plunged, awkward, into the centre of the thorcis, soft point, the bed in the slope between the flat hills of the male mammary glands, pointless. Herbert's knuckles were white. He wished the blood would spurt up, but it didn't, the _tranquility_ of the dead man ridiculing the horror in the breast of the breathing. A sharp kick sent the gurney rattling away to clatter horribly against the wall. Metal misery was the taste in the doctor's mouth. He remembered Dan's.

\---

_It was only him now._

It was what galloped in Dan's head, that thought, and Herbert wanted to be so close that he could hear the thundering from beneath his skin.

_It was only him now._

Forehead in the crook of the taller man's neck, they just stood there.  
Dead in their own right.  
Their eyes were like rhinestones, glittering and cautious like rabbits'.  
Herbert brought his lips to brush the skin beneath the jawbone, and nudged up into it. It was not a proper kiss, because he made no physical effort, did not pucker, or press with variation, but it was there and it existed, and Dan felt it and brought his clasped hands up to hold at Herbert's nape, which was wet. Held him there like a strangled chicken.  
They were like rugged angels - o, the irony - stripped of wings and drenched in everything bad. Herbert's breath hitched and fluttered warmly down Dan's neck, and his eyes were heavy in euphoria, staring into the dark. Dan was watching a light on the wall, a light which flickered and died. 

They were left alone with each others' pulses.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this is so weird and just argh idk what i was going for i didn't have a solid idea i just wanted to write something for them  
> i'm definitely writing these guys like a lot ok because they're the best


End file.
